A Walk in the Woods

Radhanagari & Dajipur - Originally this article was published on Ghumr.com. To read this article with photogrphs please click on following link
http://www.ghumr.com/a-walk-in-the-woods/

Radhanagari, Dajipur Wildlife Sanctuary

Sometimes I wonder how beautiful our country is! She holds treasure in terms of variety of languages, cultures and of when it comes to biodiversity; she is stands in top ten in the World.  I have a dream to visit and re-visit the maximum of its wonderful places. Especially those ones that are well known for their biodiversity, culture etc. Luckily through my profession I get to visit such places. Through nature camps it the world of various plants and animal opens in front of us. Then it is up to us, how much energy/knowledge to absorb from this. We (me and my friend along with campers) go for nature outings to various places. One of such outings was the Dajipur and Radhanagari wildlife sanctuary. It is located in Kolhapur district of western Maharashtra region. The area of this sanctuary is about 351.16 sq kms. Generally, people approach this place from Kolhapur. But, we thought it will be great if we could cover both the coasts and forests of Western Ghats. Hence, we decided to visit this from Kankavli, Sindhudurga of Maharashtra state. Tasting Konkani food and exploring Konkan region were amongst the other intensions behind choosing this route.

The Western Ghats of India are blessed with natural beauty. Its rich species diversity adds up to it beauty. It covers western coastline of states – Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala. It is home to about four thousand species of plants and thousands of faunal species including 325 globally threatened species (as per IUCN). Unfortunately , due to so called ‘development/progress’ Western Ghats (WG) is losing its species diversity and ultimately the forests and clean coastlines. Due to this the natural wealth is under threat and the WG is also listed in the 25 World Bio-diversity hotspots. However, some regions still hold rich flora and fauna. 

A new tiger reserve has been declared in Maharashra – Sahyadri Tiger Reserve. Dajipur and Radhanagari are part of it. (Sahyadri mountain ranges run parallel to the western coast; start from Nasik and merge in to the Nilgiri ranges of Tamilnadu). One requires a prior permission from The Kolhapur Forest Department of Maharashtra. It is famous for Indian Gaur (this animal is by mistake sometimes referred as ‘bisons’ that are not found in India). The other species diversity is worth watching too.

We reached to Kankavli in the morning and after sometime we went to Mithbav – a creek nearby.  The site was suggested by one of the Sr. Scientists in SACON, Tamil Nadu (Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History). His students showed us the project site and gave information about their work. Then we went for a nature walk with him. Fishermen were busy with their fishing boats ready to catch the day’s fish. It had a small patch of mangrove. Good number of waders and other land birds were seen even though it was June – the onset of monsoon. We spent lot of time in looking and clicking the fiddler crabs – well adapted species for mangrove ecosystem. It was wonderful to observe them. The male of this species has two claws (like other species) but one of the in far bigger than another. The function of this claw is to attract female. It does that by waving their bigger claw. After having a good walk and clicking pictures we realized that we all were hungry. Our driver Mr. _____ was a local person from kankavli and he knew the about place where one can get the home cooked food. After having a good meal, we headed towards another Dhamapur bird sanctuary. There was an old temple and next to it was a huge lake. We just sat upon the staircases on the bank and searched for birds. Common kingfisher, a pair of marsh-hawk gave us a chance to have a look at them for a very long time. We still had some time in hand so we went to Kunkeshwar temple situated right next to the sea. The waves was breath taking. Roaring of sea really takes charge of one’s soul. While returning, it was getting dark. And we got to see a pair of quails making their way near road or probably trying to cross the road. They hid behind the bushes and we did not disturb them. If somebody else had seen those then, there was chance of these quails getting killed by villagers/ truck drivers as quail meat tastes good. By this time Mr. _______ got used to us and he used to stop the vehicle as soon as he spots any bird while driving.

Next day was a day for Radhanagari and Dajipur. On the way we halted at many places to see various trees like oroxylum indicum (Tetu), Erythrina indica (Indian coral tree) and birds like the commonly found in konkan – Malabar pied hornbill, Kestrels, parakeets etc. Radhanagari forest department provided us a guide for nature walk inside the forest. He explained us the forest and its species. Radhanagari is a catchment area of Shahu Sagar and Laxmi sagar. The forest has three types: Southern semi evergreen, Southern Moist deciduous forest and Southern evergreen forest. Since it was first week of June (not a peek season), there were no tourists at all inside the sanctuary.  So, it was only us and the forest. We clicked many insects, birds, plants… simply trying to absorb the forest as much as we could and linking ourselves with it. There was small house of a farmer and both of children were very pretty and curious about us. They offered us some water. Elderly people had a quick chat with us as they were really busy in plaughing their rice fields.

Last day we decided to visit costal side starting with Sindhudurga fort. On the way we spotted a brahminy kite sitting on a coconut palm. It appeared as if it was sitting in peace. I don’t know from when it was sitting but we spent around half an hour in clicking it and it did not move. Ultimately we had to move as there were few other destinations we wanted wo visit. When we reached the fort, iIt was closed due to wave actions and it was declared as dangerous to enter in that water. SO, we went on exploring places like Kudal, vengurla etc. We came across a very interesting well. That was built in Chhatrapati Shivaji’s time for Horses. It was step well. A gigantic ficus tree was standing next to the well. We also got one nice birding spot on the way. It was full with waterlilies and other reeds. Reeds provide nice shelter and feeding area for water birds. There were coots, Purple moorhens, bronze winged jacanas, brahminy ducks, grey herons and few dabchicks. After spending about an hour here , we decided to move and catch the train.

This visit had really given us a lot in terms of peace, calm mind, energy, natural beauty, sightings, understanding people and their well adapted life styles and off course a very good food. I really wonder when people say I finished Konkan sightseeing in three days where as we could not finish even a 1/10^th of it in three days. To understand any place properly one should sufficient time to observe its people, their lifestyles, geography, climate, nature and biodiversity basically everything. And try to relate them with each other after. After doing you may realize that nature rules upon us really.

Thanks for reading.